He also asked about a raytracing GPU, not a 'general' cpu. If your ps3 is off raytracing, don't expect any CPU time available to actually play a game :P

Years ago there was a quake mod that featured raytracing. So I guess Sony has caught up with what PCs were doing half a decade ago, amirite?

That's exactly what the article is talking about.

With Nvidia buying a company doing a big raytracing renderer it brings us closer to that future or at least hints that it is a direction Nvidia is interested in looking at.

Perhaps it is too far off to see it in next gen consoles but it is likely to happen eventually and I am curious how the people on this forum think it will influence gaming graphics if at all (current tech rendering techniques combined with next gen power increase might make the difference in graphical quality small enough that almost nobody can see the difference).

Also, thanks for the links Stranne. I haven't read the second one yet (long thread) but the article points why it might not be practical for games and why it might not be such an improvement.

However, like the conclusion says, mixing both techniques might be a good compromise nad would make sense from NVidia's point of view as they already have good cards for rasterisation so adding raytracing hardware could give them an edge for those time when using it makes sense (well, until ATI finds a way to do the smae with their cards at least).

Very interestin thread Sri Lumpa and thanks to Stranne for Beyond3D article.
Here some video of Intel's Ray Tracing :

Quake4 :


IDF 2007 in Taipei :

 true but lets look at rumored specs of the next gen PlayStation (PS4) and Cell 2.0. (not the shrunk varieties of the cell 1.0)

Current Cell (1.0) specs:

1 PPE
8 SPEs
up to 6.4GHz (200 degrees Fahrenheit)

PS3 Cell Specs:

1 PPE
7 SPEs
3.2GHz (due to heat)

now Cell 2.0 rumored specs:

4 PPEs
32 SPEs
Clock Unknown

It took the power of 3 RSXs, 21 SPEs, and 3 PPEs to properly raytrack a single car. 

The PS4 wont be strong enough to do full scale raytracking but due rumored abilities of the PS4 having  massively upgraded CELL and a video card that will easily be above the strength of 3 RSXs combined there is extreme possibility that there will be limited raytracking in games so lighting will be at least 1000 times better.

For CELL 2.0 rumor see Sony's 2005 E3 press conference.

Yeah, the Cell 2.0 is essentially just a cluster of Cell 1.0s (hopefully with the eigth SPU active). I wonder if they'll be able to manage the heat of a 4.0 ghz Cell now, with the smaller dies and all. Just think if they hadn't downclocked the speed of the Cell for the ps3.

As for the PS4's GPU, I doubt it would only be as strong as 3 RSXs.  The RSX was stronger than two 6800 Ultras, which hit shelves over 4 years after the ps2 came out. 

Probably will be in some games on some next gen consoles. Depends largely when the next gen consoles are out... Assuming it's over 10 years from now, there could easily be over 50X the performance of a PS3, then it is highly likely that some games will. If nothing else, than maybe some of the photo games where you take a picture.... that could probably even be done now on a PS3, where the photo shot would be a ray trace where you could zoom in for even greater deatail.